Robert Pattinson Details

Twi-Hards have been emailing all weekend requesting an analysis of Robert Pattinson’s Details spread and interview. The article was written by Jenny Lumet. You’d know her from Rachel Getting Married. It was her screenplay. So there’s a neurotic actor, and a neurotic writer, and they get together, and it results in passages like this. Posits Lumet of Pattinson:

I worry his head is going to explode. He answers questions with questions. Doors open onto more doors. This sometimes leads to trouble with scripts: Since he sees every character's point of view, he often needs some sort of distillation. The catch is that unless the distillation somehow encompasses every character's essence, it only causes his imagination to fire more wildly. It's the kaleidoscope-vision thing. Some people can have the ocean in front of them and just put their big toe in. Rob wants to swim until he drowns, and he's going to try to drink it all up before he goes under. His striving is a source of worry because he can't really tell anybody he wants more.

Swim until he drowns?

I want to believe Jenny Lumet is better than the banality of that statement.

Then again, it’s her subject. You can argue if you are a fan that he is cerebral, that he is insightful, that he is thoughtful. You can argue if you are someone who is indifferent (me) that he spends too much time thinking and worrying about himself. When I went to see Meryl Streep speak at the ROM, one of her most charming points was that actors spend too much time on THEM and too little time learning about others. This is what, according to Streep, makes a good actor a good actor. Good actors are interested. And that makes them interesting. But when their interest is self directed, their ability to be authentic is compromised.

"Before, I felt like I couldn't break through anything, including myself. And now it feels a bit as though I've climbed along the side of my brain and am at least looking in. But I know it will take me at least another 10 years before I'm remotely satisfied with anything I do. But with acting you keep trying in the hopes you might be . . . great. But then I think, does wanting to be good or even great, or even just wanting to make art, cheapen the experience? If it exists out there—this invisible-creative-spirit-idea thing—then you're the medium through which it travels so everybody can touch it. But . . . what gives you the right to be the medium? What gives you the right to claim it? And then get an agent and say I want $20 million and a fruit basket to be the medium, thank you very much. As an actor, you can elevate the human condition or cheapen it. I would assume it's the same with anything you do—you try to elevate and maybe someday you will."

It’s not that I don’t buy Pattinson’s intention to be considered a serious actor. It’s not that I don’t believe that he seriously wants to excel at his craft. His preoccupation with it is what undermines his sincerity. What it comes back to is that classic Ryan Adams quote:

“(I) only wish to live as normal a life as possible, so that I might always remain punk as f*ck AND sober.”

The active pursuit of being punk as f-ck is the very antithesis of punk as f-ck. And in the same vein, Pattinson’s constant moaning about the exploration of his inner artist, and his incessant need to remind us that that is his motivation, reeks of pretention and narcissism… not unlike…

John Mayer.

Pattinson’s version of it is certainly more palatable but if you distill both down to their basic forms, it is essentially the same attribute: self absorption. And while Pattinson may not give me the uber jizzies, while I may not be his most ardent supporter, I also prefer not to lump him into the same category as that masturbating douche. The boy needs to chill the f-ck out. And he’s shown that he can do it.

There’s an entire discussion about nasty sh-t. Like flesh eating diseases and viruses. He and Lumet share an obsession with mutating bacteria. Just like I really, really can’t stop talking about how hard it is to poo. Just like Jacek can’t stop smelling Marcus’s stinking ass gums. There are some people I’ve heard of who can’t stop picking zits and ingrown hairs. Pattinson’s fascination with “afflictions that maim and disgust” is funny. THIS is the side that makes me care. A little.

I also enjoyed his analysis of porn. His contention that porn has lost its flair, harkening back to the era of 80s porn when angles were softer, when bodies were more believable, when seedy could be sexy, as opposed to completely not stimulating, the way fake tits and rehearsed moans have rendered modern porn totally contrived, is a sign that he can engage serious discussions about the most frivolous of subjects. Just. Like. Us. Dylan and I once spent 3 hours coming up with different ways to say I farted. Obviously Pattinson has also spent a few wasted days with his friends ruminating on the state of pornography. Again, this is funny. Explains Pattinson:

“It's just that there's nakedness all over the place now. But this shoot, it's kind of eighties nakedness, you know? If you look at porn in, like, the eighties, there was something kind of quaint about it, quite sweet—like this little naked community. The people who made it liked it, they had respect for it. Not remotely like the porn that's available now. No community in it at all. It's just everything, everywhere."

And what about this shoot? And that quote about being terrified of the lady business? Much as I’d like to turn it into a story about how poor weird Rob runs from the big bad scary vaginas, I think it’s simply a case of sarcasm or a joke that simply didn’t translate into print. “I really hate vaginas. I'm allergic to vagina. But I can't say I had no idea, because it was a 12-hour shoot, so you kind of get the picture that these women are going to stay naked after, like, five or six hours. But I wasn't exactly prepared. I had no idea what to say to these girls. Thank God I was hungover."

Whatever. He was trying to say, I “think”, that it wasn’t exactly a hard day at work.

The photos? Some of them are downright embarrassing. The one with him posing with the ocean in the background is a terrible Christopher Walken imitation. Like, don’t. I hate his pursed mouth expression when he’s leaning back against that white rug. The cover however is good. It’s suggestive, it’s sexy, he looks great. And the shot of him at dusk grazing a topless model’s hip with his finger, sunglasses on, one leg bent is probably the most attracted I’ve ever found him. Because he looks like he might actually be able to get hard. He looks convincingly virile. Barely.

But there are only two.

Every other photo takes us back to Pattinson the amoeba. Surrounded by naked women and he’s either fully clothed, unable to get in the bathtub, or staring at them from inside a painting. Interpretation? Robert Pattinson can’t connect with the pussy. Click here to see all the images and a video of the shoot is below.